How Beyoncé Can Outsmart PETA

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, the extremist animal rights organization PETA recently ambushed Beyoncé Knowles at a dinner date that she had auctioned off to raise money for charity. Several anti-fur zealots have since flooded the message board of Beyoncé's official website with personal attacks and demands that people boycott her products to protest her use of fur. What follows are three of the more outlandish posts:

Beyoncé, Don’t Let PETA Push You Around.

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is up to its sneaky tricks again. R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles volunteered to help VH1's Save The Music Foundation by agreeing to have dinner with the highest bidder on Ebay. Unbeknownst to Beyoncé, the highest bidders were members of PETA who were upset with her because she wears fur and because she uses them in the House of Dereon clothing line that she shares with her mother, Tina. The folks from PETA outbid everyone else and then used the dinner to confront Beyoncé as well as her mother and her sister Solange with an in-your-face video about the evils of the fur industry. You can see a video clip of the confrontation here.

This is hardly the first, nor even the most objectionable trick that PETA has played.

Does Iran already have a nuclear weapon?

There is more than enough evidence to believe that Iran is working its tail off to get nuclear weapons. When asked if he thought Iran had nuclear weapons, Pakistan's former army chief, Retired Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, "said he is sure Iran has had enough time to develop them."

I do not believe Iran currently has nuclear weapons. If they had them I doubt they would conceal it from the world. As Dr. Strangelove said, "the… whole point of the doomsday machine… is lost… if you keep it a secret!" And subtlety does not appear to be the Iranian Governement's strong point. Do you remember the bizarre nuclear dance that was staged when Iran successfully enriched uranium? If Iran had the bomb then its a sure bet that Ahmadinejad would be doing the Mullah Mambo.

No, they don't have it yet. But they will have it soon enough if things are allowed to go on as they are.

On Wiretaps and Minutemen

In December 2005 we learned that the NSA was conducting warrantless wiretapping of American citizens who were believed to be in contact with terrorists overseas. This program is in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which outlaws warrantless domestic wiretaps but which provides a mechanism to obtain a warrant in secret from a special FISA court. But getting a warrant from the Court can take time–a precious commodity in our war on terrorism. I say hooray for the Bush Administration for realizing that strictly following the law could lead to missed phone calls and missed opportunities to catch a terrorist plot to kill thousands of Americans! I don't want our security agents to sit around twiddling their thumbs while they wait for a FISA judge to sign a warrant. When an agent finds out that someone is in contact with a suspected overseas terrorist I want him to tap a phone, not waste his time asking a Judge "Mother, may I?"

Protest Egypt’s Crackdown on Bloggers

There is unrest in the Egyptian blogosphere today, and deservedly so Hosni Mubarak has ruled Egypt with an iron fist since 1981. That is when Emergency Laws went into effect in order to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood for the assassination of Anwar Sadat. The emergency laws are still in effect and Egyptians don’t have many of the freedoms that we take for granted.

Why We Shouldn’t Cut Off Aid To The Palestinians

The Big Pharaoh made did a good job explaining why cutting off aid to the Palestinians is a bad idea.

This is what I have warned against. Cutting off aid from the Hamas government without providing an alternative to financing the Palestinians will portray Hamas as a victim and turn it into a “cause” that Muslims around the world will rally behind. This is exactly what will happen especially afterhigh profile religious clerics are about to issue a fatwa urging Muslims and their governments to aid the Hamas government.

I agree with BP. We must aid the Palestinians but the aid must not be through the Hamas government. For just three cents a day we could aid the Palestinians in such a way that suicide bombing will lose its glamor.My plan would put pressure on Hamas to halt the bombings. If my plan were enacted then Hamas would have two choices: either abandon their quest to drive Israel off the map or be driven from office.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IRAN

I) The Danger We Face

Those who would rule out an attack against Iran are naively and dangerously wrong. With his desire to "wipe Israel off the map" and his apparent desire to usher in the return of the 12th Imam, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is just too dangerous a man to be allowed to have nuclear weapons.

Abdul Rahman has been released

The good news: Abdul Rahman has been released. The judge decided there was "problem with the evidence" so they are letting him go for the time being.

The bad news: the odds of him staying alive in Afghanistan is about as
great as the odds of President Bush being re-elected. The clerics
in Afghanistan are threatening him with "street justice". They're going
to incite the mobs to go after him, evidently, because they
believe his very existance is too much of an insult for Allah to bear.

I hope our government invites him to come to the U.S. and provides a fast-track toward citizenship for him.

The Sandmonkey provides an excellent analysis of the broader ramifications of this case.

Hooray For The Council on American-Islamic Relations!!!

I’d like to think that CAIR was reading my mind as I was writing my last post. But I really can’t take credit for it. CAIR did the right thing today by issuing a Press Release calling for Abdul Rahman’s release.

Needed: Islamic-based Arguments for Saving Abdul Rahman

Part I: The Problem

Abdul Rahman was born a Muslim in Afghanistan. He went overseas, converted to Christianity, and returned to Afghanistan. He did not keep his conversion a secret and now the Afghani authorities are putting him on trial for apostasy. He faces the death sentence because he is not knuckling under the demand of the authorities to embrace Islam and renounce Christianity. The Chicago Tribune has the story: